God of Vengeance by Giles Kristian

Harald of Skudeneshavn and am bound for Avaldsnes at the king’s invitation.’
    There was a silence, then the cracking of twigs.
    ‘I know who you are, Jarl Harald!’ a voice boomed up ahead.
    ‘Swiving goat’s prick,’ Sorli growled, for it had been a king’s voice, one bloated with the arrogance of power.
    ‘Show yourself, oath-breaker!’ Jarl Harald shouted, lowering his shield and planting the butt of his spear on the ground. It was a defiant act and worthy of a jarl, though Sigurd and the rest kept their shields up and their spears ready. ‘I would see with my own eyes the man who betrays me.’
    Another arrow streaked from the trees and clunked off a shield boss.
    ‘There he is!’ Agnar called.
    ‘I see him,’ Asbjorn growled.
    King Gorm did not answer and the forest was still, but for the heavy breathing of Harald’s men and a few mumbled words to Óðin or Thór. Sigurd felt a stream of sweat trickle between his shoulder blades, the thump of his heart against the shield of his breastbone. He thought of his dead brothers Thorvard and Sigmund and he willed King Gorm’s men to come for them so that he might kill them.
    Someone let out a great fart to split the silence and this got some chuckles.
    ‘What are they waiting for?’ Orn Beak-Nose said. ‘The sooner they come the sooner we can kill them and get home. I am as thirsty as Styrbiorn used to get after a roll in the straw with that little dark-haired beauty he picked up in Førdesfjorden.’
    ‘They are waiting for the men they had watching the coast road,’ Jarl Harald said, and Sigurd realized the truth of that. King Gorm had split his force because he had not known which route Harald would take.
    ‘Then we should run at them now,’ Beak-Nose said, spitting into the forest litter.
    ‘After you then, Orn,’ Harald said, but Orn stayed as still as a rock.
    ‘Fucking idiot,’ someone growled at Orn who muttered a curse back in their direction.
    Even if Shield-Shaker was waiting for the rest of his men he would still have more than enough to deal with the twenty Skudeneshavn men and all of them knew it. Nevertheless, Harald was reluctant to break up the defence of shields they had created, particularly as they could not yet see the men who had come to kill them.
    ‘You have been raiding people who I am sworn to protect, Jarl Harald,’ King Gorm accused, the words weaving through the forest, somehow filling it.
    It was not true, or if it was then those people had made an alliance with the king which Gorm had failed to mention to Harald. But it did not matter. Biflindi needed the pretence, was simply looking to justify the breaking of their mutual oath.
    ‘You lie!’ Jarl Harald called, still tall, shoulders square as
Reinen
’s red sail, his chest inviting the arrow from any with the courage to loose it. ‘You and Jarl Randver are snakes in the same nest. I am wondering, do you use him as a woman or does he use you?’
    There was no sharper insult a man could hurl than this and it brought a silence down over everything as men waited to see what came next.
    ‘I have come to an understanding with Randver,’ the king said eventually. ‘He has grown powerful. He has given me enough reason to weave an alliance with him.’
    ‘You mean he has given you silver,’ Harald said. ‘And in return you mean to give him my land. My silver.’
    There was the clatter of armed men to their right and voices calling to each other up ahead.
    ‘Now we see the whoresons well enough,’ Sorli growled, pointing his spear at a line of warriors coming through the trees towards them. They were coming in loose order, perhaps thirty warriors stalking through the trees like wolves.
    ‘And there,’ Sigurd said, pointing his own spear to their front left where another body of men and shields was appearing.
    ‘Thór’s bristling bollocks, this will be a hard fight,’ Frothi said, scratching his nose with the rough inside of his shield.
    ‘Well it’s not my